


Grave Markers

by mizdiz



Series: Going Down [3]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Outdoor Sex, Prison (Walking Dead), etc - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 11:17:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19868749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizdiz/pseuds/mizdiz
Summary: "She’s showered away all the filth the confinement left on her. She’s scrubbed clean like she’s brand new, and maybe she is; maybe this is some form of rebirth he’s bearing witness to. Her eyes twinkle like the distant stars, and the night shadows casting over her body give her a mysterious air, making her seem even more like a product of resurrection.He wets his bottom lip with his tongue."





	Grave Markers

"I saw my grave marker," Carol says.

Daryl isn't sure when she got here; it's possible she materialized out of thin air. He wouldn't be surprised. She did just come back from the dead, after all, and not back like the mindless monsters made of decomposing flesh that are pressed against the prison gates, single-minded, always searching for food, even at this time of night when there's almost no one around to devour.

No, she's back for real. She's standing in front of him in a raggedy tank top and pants a size or two too big, her arms crossed, holding her elbows. In the full moonlight he can just make out her razor-sharp collarbone moving up and down with her breath, because she's sucking in oxygen, blowing out carbon dioxide, like a person does when they're  _ alive _ .

"Earlier this afternoon," she continues when he doesn't say anything. "I went to say goodbye to Lori, to thank T-Dog, and I saw mine."

And he's sure she did. That skimpy cross made of splintered wood, hammered into the ground, marking a body that wasn't beneath it, because there wasn't anything left of her body to find. Or so they had thought—so  _ he _ had thought, and he's still angry at himself for not knowing better; for not realizing she wouldn't have gone without one hell of a fight. If she had died of dehydration of all things, it would have been his fault for underestimating her.

She'd told him he'd saved her.

Really he just got lucky.

She saved herself.

"What about it?" he asks, ducking his head and tearing grass blades out of the soil for no reason other than he needs something to do with his hands. He's not sure why he even asks—he knows what she's going to say.

"Thank you." 

He was right. The two words sit heavy between them, because the two of them are damn fools, too shy to explicitly talk about the memorial he'd left for her; the Cherokee rose sat in the middle of a circle of stone. 

"Don't gotta thank me," he says, eyes trained on the massacred grass scattered all over his pants. He hazards a glance at her when he asks, "Did you really think I wouldn't say goodbye?"

Her shrug suggests that the answer might be yes, and his first response is offense, but it's quickly replaced by sorrow, because he understands. She's got a demon in the back of her mind who tells her she's worthless—tells her she's not someone even her closest friend would bother mourning—and no matter how distant that voice gets with time, it's hard to mute it out completely. He knows. He has one of his own.

"... I missed you," Daryl says then, and he hopes she doesn't want any other declarations tonight, 'cause he just spent his load on that single sentence. The second he says it he's raw with vulnerability. He very nearly curls into himself like a rollie pollie, but she's merciful. She knows better than to try to make a mile with his inch because it's not pliable at all. She accepts the words as they are, and the only thing she says in response is,

"I missed you, too."

That's the only thing she  _ says _ , but her body tells a different story. She takes three steps forward until she's right in front of him, and she then lowers herself to the ground, mirroring his criss-crossed pose. There’s a confession on the tip of her tongue, he can feel it, and he waits for her to speak, never one to be uncomfortable in long silences.

“I didn’t know if I wanted to be found,” she says eventually, and her hands start snatching up grass blades too. “I kept fighting because that’s what I was supposed to do, but there was something inside me that was almost relieved at the thought of having no choice in the matter anymore.”

Daryl frowns. Survival is his number one instinct. He knows that when he goes down he’s gonna go down swinging, because there’s not a single bone in his body that would let him play submissive to the Grim Reaper. The trauma etched in the skin of his back has never made him wish he were dead, and surely she feels the same way? But then again, he doesn’t have to carry the weight of a dead daughter on his shoulders everywhere he walks.

“But then you opened that door,” Carol continues, looking at everything but him. “And when I saw you standing there I suddenly remembered that I haven’t come this far just to die. It was like all my strength came flooding back to me.”

“You ain’t never lost your strength,” Daryl says quietly. “Maybe forgot it was there, but sure as hell not lost it.” He peeks up at her through his scraggly bangs. “Strongest person I know by far.” 

Maybe he does have a few more declarations left in him after all.

She finally returns the look, and with a sad smile she holds out her hands, palms up, and Daryl only hesitates a moment before taking them in his own and squeezing them tight. He can feel her pulse on the bony underside of her wrist—a steady beat, beat, beat—and he finds solace in the fact that her heart is still pumping warm blood through her body, instead of staying still and leaving her cold.

Without meaning to he traces his index finger along the length of her vein, the seemingly innocent touch unexpectedly charged and intimate. The two of them lock eyes and the air around them grows thick. 

She’s showered away all the filth the confinement left on her. She’s scrubbed clean like she’s brand new, and maybe she is; maybe this is some form of rebirth he’s bearing witness to. Her eyes twinkle like the distant stars, and the night shadows casting over her body give her a mysterious air, making her seem even more like a product of resurrection. 

He wets his bottom lip with his tongue.

“When I started to really think I wasn’t going to make it,” she whispers. “I only thought of two things.”

“What things?” Daryl asks, his grip on her hands not loosening.

“Relief that I wouldn’t have to live with the grief of losing her anymore.”

“And the other?”

“Devastation that in order to go, I would have to leave you.”

That’s more than Daryl can handle. She has  _ got _ to stop talking. She’s always saying things like that; talking like he’s worth a damn, even in this piece of shit world where nothing matters at all. 

“Stop,” he says, but it’s not his usual playful tone. The word is terrifyingly unguarded. She shakes her head.

“No,” she says simply. 

Well that tears it, then, he decides. If she can’t shut up on her own he’ll do it for her. In a single swift action he tugs her forward so that she falls into him, and his hands let go of hers and fly up to cup her face. He kisses her, hard and skilless, trying to swallow anything else she might say that would jab at that precarious heart he carries on his sleeve.

Carol responds like his kiss is as natural as her next breath. She doesn’t fumble for a second. She holds him steady by his broad shoulders and lets him kiss her recklessly for a minute before placing a hand on his chest, encouraging him to slow down. He can tell the exact moment when she takes control over the kiss, because suddenly every movement has purpose, and it’s no longer an act of defense, and is instead something much scarier: Passion.

She parts her lips against his, and he follows suit, copying her movements because while he may not be an expert, he learns by doing, and he learns damn fast. He sucks on the tip of her tongue, and blunt nails dig into him where the arms of his flannel have been ripped off and his skin is exposed.

When he’s forced to breathe he pulls away and tries to meet her eye but it’s like looking at the sun, so instead he starts his way along her jawline, all the way to her neck, where he peppers kisses everywhere and anywhere he can reach. There are soft noises coming from her on every exhale, egging him on. He startles when he feels her start to work a button undone on hs shirt. She feels his sudden tension and gives his forearm a reassuring squeeze. He swallows hard and makes his way to her collarbone, pushing aside his insecurities as button after button opens, and soon her hands are running up his torso, splaying out across his chest. 

She angles away from him and starts her own expedition, nipping at his bare skin, brushing her lips across his sternum, causing goosebumps to break out up and down his arms. When he puts his hands on her hips he’s embarrassed when they tremble slightly, but if she notices she doesn’t say. Tentatively, he ghosts his thumb along the strip of skin between where the hem of her shirt meets the waist of her pants. At her hum of approval he gains more confidence, and he slips his hands up the back of her shirt, each of her ribs small speed bumps leading to the band of her bra. Dragging herself away from the expanse of his abdomen, she glances over to the closest watchtower.

“Can’t see us,” Daryl mutters in her ear. He knows how not to be spotted; found the blindspots in the prison yard before they had even decided to plant roots. Their only audience is the small crowd of walkers down the hill, who don’t care one way or another how indecent the two of them get. And by the way things are going, he’s willing to bet it’s about to get pretty damn indecent.

“Mm,” Carol hums, leaning up to kiss him on the mouth again. Her lips are plump, and malleable, and  _ warm _ , and he melts into her like butter. He moves to take hold of the bottom of her shirt and then hesitates, asking a silent question. “Go ahead,” she mumbles against his lips, and that’s all the permission he needs to lift the tank top up and over her head, tossing it to the side haphazardly.

She’s not wearing a bra, and his cock aches at her nipples standing at attention in the night air. He takes the time to regard the rest of her. She’s too thin, her time in confinement making her even more malnourished than the rest of them, but there’s lean muscle there too; muscle you wouldn’t expect there to be on a mousy little thing like her, and that’s the thing about her, isn’t it? She’s never going to be what meets the eye. 

He draws her in so that they’re flush together, chest-to-chest, and he kisses her senseless, until they’re somehow horizontal in the grass, their legs intertwined, and his hands still wrapped behind her back even as he lays on top of her. 

Carol lets out a whine of protest when he breaks the kiss, but is quickly placated when he begins a trail down the length of her body. He encircles one nipple with his tongue while he thumbs the other one, and she mewls, leaning into the touch. He sucks little, circular bruises into a pathway from her bust to her pelvis. He undoes the button of her pants and takes hold of her waistline. Daryl hesitates, giving her ample time to protest. 

“Shoes,” is all she says. He lets out a huff of laughter, briefly abandoning the task at hand to scoot down and untie the laces of her boots. He takes hold of them at the heel and tugs them off her feet, one at a time, and he’s back on her in a flash once they’re set off to the side.

He drags her pants and panties down together leisurely, for his own enjoyment, because he gets off on the slow reveal. Inch by inch he gets introduced to her milky thighs. His knuckles brush against her rough knees, and her shins are covered in a fine layer of hair she hasn’t bothered to shave off in between every life or death situation. By the time he gets her out of her pants entirely, they’re both breathing like marathon runners, and he can’t speak for her, but he’s pretty sure at least 85% of his blood is being allocated to the activity at hand. 

Shaking, Daryl nudges her knees apart, and they fall open like they were behind held up by straw. He runs his hands along the insides of her thighs, and the next breath she exhales comes out sounding remarkably close to his name. He settles in between her legs and presses a kiss against the spot where her right thigh meets her pelvis. He can smell her and he swears his mouth waters. Done teasing both of them now, he moves his kiss to her center. She groans from somewhere in the back of her throat.

Daryl traces his tongue arrhythmically against her clit. Someone, somewhere, once told him to get a woman off you have to write the alphabet. Instead, he decides to write something more important. He inscribes on her most sensitive skin the letters, A, L, I, V, E.

He writes the word over and over again like a fucking cunnilingus mantra, while he slips a finger inside her and revels in the way she writhes beneath him. The moon casts light over them, and it’s an added ingredient, making her taste like how moonlight feels—something bright in the darkness; life amongst the void. 

He knows she’s close when her muscles start contracting around his finger; his tongue. He continues to remind her that she’s alive. Instead of their bodies, they’re burying their weaknesses. She’s taking her thoughts of giving up and pitching them down a six foot hole, and Daryl throws away the guilt he’s holding for underestimating her, and the two of them, tangled together with Daryl’s arms looped under her knees, his face buried in her center, become the grave markers for their own buried faults. Carol comes with a gasp, a ceremonious orgasm, as she arches her back off the ground where they’ve laid parts of themselves to rest.

Daryl pulls away from her gently, placing a single, soft kiss between her legs, but Carol still wants more. She tugs him up to her, pressing her lips to his, swallowing the taste of herself on his tongue. She pushes him on the shoulder until he gets the hint and rolls onto his back, and he’s barely touched the ground before she’s undoing his fly and shoving his pants down to his knees. Carol straddles him, hovering just above where he’s so hard it hurts, and although there’s a spark of fire in her eye, she waits for him to give her the go ahead before she goes further. He has no words, and so just nods.

He slides into her easily, and it’s simultaneously an overload of sensation and the safest he’s ever felt. They fit together; it’s a matching chemistry. She rocks up and down, twisting her hips side-to-side ever so slightly to make him even crazier for the feel of her. He holds onto her hips so tight she’ll have the marks until next week.

He chokes out a warning when his own orgasm starts to build. A thousand little electric shocks gather together at his base, and she doesn’t pull away at his warning, so when thce shocks finally spark, he empties himself deep inside her, the noise that comes out of him absolutely primal; a guttural growl from deep in his chest.

She rides him until he’s spent it all, and still doesn’t move right away even then. First, she takes the time to kiss him thoroughly, running her fingers through his hair, before finally lifting herself off of him, and collapsing beside him in the grass. He’s got his pants yanked down and his shirt wide open, and somehow he feels like he’s more exposed than her, even though she’s laying in the grass naked as the day she was born.

They’re quiet for a good long while. There are distant groans and moans from the prison gate, and the breeze rustles tree branches. Her hand finds his and they lace their fingers together.

“Don’t die again,” Daryl says after a while. 

“I won’t,” she says. “I promise.”

“Wish you could,” Daryl whispers. Carol turns onto her side and Daryl looks at her. She’s bright-eyed, breathing, and her heart is beating. Today, at least, he has her.

“You already gave me a grave marker,” she reminds him softly. She gives his hand a squeeze. “It’d be rude to make you do it again.” 

**Author's Note:**

> yo! 
> 
> for cel readers, i was way behind on my chapter today bc ig i'm real poop at making deadlines lately, so i threw this together instead as a placeholder until i can deliver. she should be here sunday at the latest. thnx for your patience, babes.
> 
> non-cel readers...thanks for reading my porn?
> 
> later!  
> -diz


End file.
